


And When I Wake Up, Will You Still Be Here?

by The_lazy_eye



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Sex, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Guilt, Post-Canon, Praise Kink, Tribbing, Vaginal Fingering, bed sharing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:00:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26571043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_lazy_eye/pseuds/The_lazy_eye
Summary: “Hey, Catra,” Adora whispers. She’s quiet, but the room is so silent that her voice cuts right through Catra’s thoughts. Adora is gentle with her touch, reaching out to run the tips of her fingers over the back of Catra’s hand. “We’re home.”
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 207





	And When I Wake Up, Will You Still Be Here?

It seems laughable, how fast the war ended. All the loss, all that death and destruction ended in the blink of an eye.

Or, more accurately, the wave of a sword. _She-ra’s_ sword. The white, fluorescent light that washed over the whole of Etheria was all it took for the darkness to be overcome. Horde Prime fell, the magic restored, and the war miraculously ended.

It seemed so easy, looking back. And even though Catra knows it wasn’t easy, was there for the hardest parts of the war, it feels almost too simple. There’s a distinct ache that runs up the back of her legs and a pounding her head they just won’t subside, but standing in what’s left of Adora’s room back in Bright Moon is _too easy_.

The room itself is ransacked, what’s left of her belongings tattered and torn. When Bright Moon finally fell, wayward Horde soldiers posted up for the long haul. It’s beautiful all the same. Not from the ruined fountain or the high, round windows but because it’s _Adora’s_. Even from months of disuse, Catra can smell her scent lingering in the corners. She’s everywhere and so distinctly _her_.

It’s almost funny. Growing up in the bunks, surrounded by metal and with nothing to call your own, Catra never pictured either of them living somewhere like this. She has half a mind to be bitter, to curl her lip around her teeth and reject the entire notion of living in Bright Moon. There’s something that’s too prissy, too _pompous_ for her to want this kind of life. The barracks were perfectly acceptable.

But Adora has made a home in these four walls. She has lived her life up here, high in the castle and surrounded by so much of her own space. Space Catra and other Horde soldiers have never known. And even though it’s something Catra doesn’t want – wouldn’t want, if not for Adora – she knows she’s going to stay.

Despite wanting to, it can’t be this easy. She can’t just be standing here, no catch or hidden consequences. There has to be some kind of test. She knows she’s on Glimmer’s good side these days, somehow having been officially inducted into the Best Friend Squad, but there’s no way the citizens of Bright Moon will be comfortable with a force captain living in their castle, eating their food and sleeping in their fancy, high walled bedrooms.

No. Everything in Catra’s life has been a bare boned fight. Every step she took was calculated, every breath she took was watched. The eyes of another always bore down her back, waiting for her to fuck up.

Oh, how she fucked up. She spent _years_ fucking up. So much time spent chasing after empty dreams of power and control, so many people hurt. So much blood on her claws, both directly and directly.

The exhaustion of the past few days catches up with her like a punch to the throat. The world wasn’t really steady in the first place, but now Catra’s vision swims in front of her as she tries to get her bearings back. Adora wobbles next to her, equally exhausted and silent from their journey home.

_Home._

The word tastes funny in her mouth and she hasn’t even spoken it. Home isn’t something she’s ever had, not really. When she thinks of the Fright Zone, she thinks of expectation and pressure. She wasn’t there because she _wanted_ to be, there was there by force and, eventually, obligation. Maybe she would have called it home, three years ago, but that was before she knew the difference between need and compulsion.

It’s not even like there was anything attractive about the Fright Zone, not in the end. Everything was a desperate grab for self-worth. If she ruled Etheria, if she destroyed the world, that would prove everyone wrong.

Everyone who ever doubted her, who ever _hurt_ her, would be sorry. She would make them pay by the simple act of dominance. Shadow Weaver, Octavia, Hordak… all of them know they were wrong to think so little of her. She clawed her way to the top, ruled beside them and then over them. Saw what she wanted and took it for herself. She let desperate need for power consume her.

Then there was Adora.

Back then, she wanted Adora to pay, too. It took a long time for her to figure out that Adora did none of those things. She never doubted Catra, and she sure as hell never hurt her on purpose. Adora asked her to come with, offered her hand to join the Rebellion… She should have said yes.

Everything would have been so much easier if she had just _said yes_.

 _No_. Her sick pride and deadly anger held her rooted to the ground, fused with the metal panels of the Fright Zone. She held herself down and back in a thousand different ways and now she’s paying the price for it.

She shouldn’t be here. She doesn’t _belong_ here. Even with Bright Moon in ruins, Catra does not deserve to stand among such beauty. She’s never done anything to deserve this.

All those years of fighting. All that blood.

“Hey, Catra,” Adora whispers. She’s quiet, but the room is so silent that her voice cuts right through Catra’s thoughts. Adora is gentle with her touch, reaching out to run the tips of her fingers over the back of Catra’s hand. “We’re home.”

 _Home._

“How are you holding up?” The exhaustion is clear in Adora’s eyes, but there’s something else there, too. Something soft lingering where the corners of her eyes crease, a familiar sight from childhood. Adora has looked at her like this a thousand times. On top of their perch, tucked away in the barracks, over their rations in the cafeteria. She couldn’t name it before, but now she knows better.

Knows its _love_. 

“I’m okay,” she shrugs. It’s only a half truth, the whispering of _I shouldn’t be here, I don’t deserve this, you shouldn’t want me,_ stays locked behind her lips.

“Me, too,” Adora smiles, finally trailing her fingers down to intertwine with Catra’s own. “We’re finally here.”

“Yeah,” is all Catra says. It’s easier to swallow it all down. Just for now.

“Are you tired?” Adora asks. Catra watches as she nods to the center of the room. Underneath a torn canopy is a small bed, roughly the same size as the ones they once slept on. There isn’t enough room for both of them, but that never stopped them before. Catra always found her way down and to the foot of Adora’s bed, draping herself over tired calves and intentionally tangling them up. She’d be gone by wake up, crawled up back into her own bed before the iron fist of the Horde could come crashing down on them.

They never talked about it, never really got the chance to. It was always _go, go, go_ and never _hey, let's sit down and talk about our feelings_. Not that Catra would have been an open book about the way her heart stopped beating around Adora. But still.

Adora sends her another gentle smile that melts the pain of those memories away. “You don’t have to sleep by my feet.”

It takes a solid ten seconds for Catra to wipe the dumbfounded look off her face. “You remember that?”

Adora laughs a bright, happy sound and says, “Of course I do. It was probably my favorite part of the Horde.”

Something warm floods the cavity of Catra’s chest. Something soft and brilliant. “Mine, too.”

They cross the room together, Catra trailing slightly behind before they all but collapse on top of each other. Shoes get kicked off and jackets get strewn about the room, but for the most part they stay clothed. It takes too much effort to stop their armor completely off, so they end up tangled together, half dressed and shrouded in enervation.

“I’ve dreamt about this, you know,” Adora hums into the quiet of the room. Catra can feel the rumble of her voice against her chest, relishes in the weight of Adora practically on top of her. Mindful of her claws, she tightens her hold.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Adora continues. Her voice is soft, but not with sleep. She sounds awake and present, but contemplative. As if she’s reaching into the very bottom of her memory. Or summoning up enough courage to speak the truth. It’s a feeling Catra knows all too well, so she presses a gentle kiss into the crown of Adora’s head. “When we were kids, I used to wish you would crawl up and properly sleep with me, just like this. I wanted to hold you. I wanted you to hold me.”

Catra wanted that too. She wanted _so bad_ , but she remembers fear as the primary emotion of her childhood. Those eyes, always watching, stopped her from doing most everything she wanted.

“And then, when I was here,” Adora continues, “I dreamt about you in this bed with me. I hated it at first, especially when we fell out. I tried not to think about you, but every time I closed my eyes you were here. With me. It hurt but it felt so good, at the same time. I couldn’t understand why.”

Catra feels herself bristling at Adora’s words. The raw honestly in them drives a stake right through the center of her chest, making it hard to breathe and harder to accept this is real. She knows she hurt Adora, but to hear her say it out loud? She would rather die.

Adora seems to sense the way her emotions roll over her like waves. Even without words, she’s always been able to read Catra like a book.

Catra feels a small, deft hand make its way up into her hair and begin to rub gentle circles into the space behind her ear. It smooths out some of the tension, brings her back down to this moment. To them, together.

“I get it now,” Adora says. “Why I always dreamt about you. I loved you – love you _now_.”

“What did you dream about?” Catra can’t help but ask. The knowledge that Adora thought about her when they were apart, _dreamt_ about her, is a balm to the ache in her soul. It waters down the pain, just a little bit.

“All kinds of things. Sometimes, we’d be fighting and I would chase you as fast as I could but I still couldn’t catch you. Other times, we’d be back in the Fright Zone and it was as if nothing ever changed,” Adora answers willingly. She sounds fond and Catra feels her press in tighter, the hand in her hair shifting to rub at the nape of her neck. “But my favorites were when we were just like this. You, in my bed or me, in yours. We’d be pressed together and I would be able to hear your heart beating in your chest. You always felt so solid, so real. You were never there when I woke up, though. Obviously.”

Catra clutches her tighter, sure she’s crushing Adora from the force of it but neither of them complains. Adora simply nuzzles her face into Catra’s neck, breathing in her scent and sighing. “I’m here, now.”

Without warning, Adora pulls her hand out of Catra’s hair and pushes up onto her forearms and suddenly Catra is caught in her unrelenting gaze, glazed over and focused all at once. “You’re here now.”

They stay like that for a few seconds, hours, _days_ , just staring at each other. It’s easy to get lost in the icy warm expanse of Adora’s eyes, little swells of ocean blue that tug her underwater in the best kinds of ways. She’s never been able to stare like this, so openly and for so long, and for as wonderful as it feels to _finally_ have what she’s always wanted, Catra almost feels overwhelmed by it all.

“I dreamt about other things, too,” she whispers and Catra finds oxygen inside of her words. There’s a beat of silence where Catra thinks she’s going to have to ask _what_ other things but then Adora says, “Can I kiss you?”

And who is Catra to ever say no to Adora?

She nods and watches as Adora shifts, blonde spilling over her shoulders and down onto Catra’s chest. The moment is slow, honey thick and tense as Adora leans in. A foot becomes inches, becomes centimeters, and then she feels the soft swell of chapped lips against her own.

It’s nothing like their kiss at the Heart, and yet it’s exactly the same.

The tsunami of hope, want, _love_ is all the same. It all crests inside of Catra’s chest, lifting her higher and higher until she’s suspended in the sky, almost out of her body and entirely out of her mind. Adora’s lips feel like clouds and her touch is as soft as the sky. Just like before, they go slow and tentative.

But it’s still new, still _different_. Catra is hardly used to the reality of Adora’s feelings. She does not have the mental capacity to catalogue all the different types of touches they now apparently share. Where their kiss at the Heart was a breakthrough, led entirely by Catra in the heat of their emotions, this second one is exploratory. She feels the way Adora’s lips slide against her own, demure yet persistent. Happy to be here, happy to be together, yet seeking something more. Her arms now bracket Catra, boxing her in and supporting most of her weight.

It’s nice, Catra thinks, but it’s not enough. Now that she has Adora here, _really_ has her, she wants to feel all of her. As much as Adora is willing to give, she wants. Her arms come up and wrap around Adora’s shoulders, pulling her weight more firmly on top. It’s comforting, the feeling of her weight pressing down over the length of her body.

“Am I crushing you?” Adora asks and Catra can’t help but laugh. Sure, Adora is taller and ninety percent muscle mass but she’s not _crushing her_. No, she is simply surrounding her, inundating her senses with every touch, scent, and taste she is. Catra is happy to be consumed in this way, happy to get lost in the sensations.

“Keep going,” She answers, tacking on a, “please,” for good measure.

It’s gentle, the way Adora kisses her. The slide of her lips has gone from tentative to sure as they begin to settle into a rhythm. And it’s _nice,_ almost tender – until it’s not.

Catra’s not sure who shifts where or who’s hand cups who’s face, but the kiss deepens almost instantly. Adora goes from keeping herself balanced to practically pressing Catra into the mattress. It catches Catra so off guard that she gasps and Adora takes advantage, slipping her tongue inside. It draws a ragged moan from Catra, the kind she’d prefer to stifle in a pillow or maybe her own fist, but she doesn’t get the chance. Adora doesn’t seem to mind, though. In fact, she seems into it, judging by the way she keeps kissing Catra, licking into her mouth and once again threading her fingers through her hair. Little wayward pools of heat begin to gather at the bottom of her stomach, warming her up from the inside out.

It isn’t until her head is spinning that she realizes the moisture on her face isn’t drool or sweat. _It’s tears._

“Adora,” Catra pulls back. “Adora what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” _She’s lying._

Adora’s lips chase hers but Catra gets her hands between them and blocks her. “You’re crying.”

“I’m fine,” Adora sniffles, _fucking sniffles_. Catra feels the hand in her hair flex as Adora tries to ground herself.

Catra gets it. She does. It’s so much easier, sometimes, to just pretend everything’s fine. To shrug it all off and keep going, chasing those highs that make the lows more bearable. Really, Catra’s not one to judge, but she knows this is fragile. One wrong move and it can all come crashing down. “Talk to me.”

“I just –” Adora starts, then stops. She chokes back a silent sob, eyes shut tight as she steadies her breathing. “You died, Catra, and then I almost died. _I was supposed to die._ But I didn’t and now we’re here. And you’re in my arms just like I always dreamt. _And I’m kissing you_ and I just – I love you so much. I thought I’d never get to tell you.”

Her voice cracks on the last word and the floodgates come crashing open. Tears drip hot and steady down her face as she burrows into the crook of Catra’s neck. Shoulders shake like earthquakes and all Catra can do is hold on for dear life as Adora rattles apart in her arms.

“I’m here,” Catra repeats, hoping to steady Adora. It was only a matter of time before all the armor she always wears came cracking off. They’ve seen too much in the past few months, lived too hard in the past few years. Now that they have a moment to rest it’s all catching up to them – catching up to Adora. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

She feels the press of Adora’s lips against the side of her neck, then again on the line of her jaw. She quickly works her way back up to Catra’s lips, and this time Catra is eager to receive her. All of Adora’s emotions pour into her kiss, and in turn, into Catra. “I love you,” she murmurs into the kiss, voice wet and desperate. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” Catra answers, and she does. _God,_ how she loves Adora. She loves her with every piece of her body, every inch in of skin and drop of blood she has left. Loving Adora is easy, even when it was hard.

It’s all she’s ever known how to do.

Before she knows what’s happening, Adora is shifting again and Catra feels two strong thighs straddle her hips.

“Is this okay?” What kind of fucking question is that? Adora is pressed right up against her, down the entire length of her body and it’s making Catra’s head swim from the sheer heat of it. Adora hardly stops kissing her and soon she’s trailing kisses down from the corner of Catra’s mouth to her to the side of her neck. “Need to be close to you.”

All Catra can do is nod, completely at the mercy of the woman above her. In the back of her mind, she knows Adora needs this just as much as she does. The close contact, the confirmation that this is real, they’re both _alive_.

Catra slides her hands up the expanse of Adora’s thighs, finally getting to appreciate up close just how thick they are. Her hands can’t even wrap around them and instead skim the tops until they get to Adora’s waist. There, she feels the coils of muscle under Adora’s lower stomach, ripping as her girlfriend gives an involuntary twitch of her hips.

She whispers, _gasps_ Catra’s name into the crook of her neck and repeats, “Is this okay?”

Catra can hear every silent question burning under Adora’s skin. _Am I going too fast? Is this too much? Do you need me to stop?_

Nothing is okay in the same way that everything is okay. They saved the world from certain destruction and now they’re going to set on the path to rebuilding. They’re going to make things right again, restore balance to the world. Nothing is more okay than that.

But right now, right in this moment, there’s too much inside of her head. As the adrenaline of the war fades away, the leftovers of her actions begin to creep in. Guilt from her past, fear for her future – it’s nothing but a violent cacophony of sounds inside her mind. _Killer_ , she hears her own voice whisper. _Traitor._

_Worthless._

_Everything’s your fault. No one will ever accept you here._

It’s hard to shut it off, hard to slink away from the reality of her own choices. She knows she fucked up, but isn’t she worth some kind of redemption? Adora seems to think so. Adora has _always_ thought Catra was worth something. She always stuck around, even after she left.

That has to mean something, right? It _has_ to. It’s a lifeline, right now. One of the only things she has left to grasp onto. Adora’s love. Adora’s _faith_ in her. It tethers her to Etheria. Keeps her from sinking too deep into her own self-loathing.

The solid weight on top of her helps to bring her down and ground her back in the moment.

“More than okay.”

Adora nips at the sensitive parts of Catra’s neck, soothing the sting over with her tongue. It sends a shiver up the length of Catra’s spine. She arches into the touch at the feeling of soft hands running down her sides and back up again, dragging little lightning bolts of static and _heat_ through her fur.

Absently, _desperately_ , Catra’s hands run up the length of Adora’s back before coming back down in one fluid motion. She can’t help it, needs to feel more of Adora under her hands, feel the way her body is moving.

Her hands slip under the fabric of Adora’s shirt, feeling the muscles of her lower back as they shift with Adora’s rocking. As her hands trail higher, she allows herself to get lost in everything that Adora is. Completely surrounding and pinned, completely under the heel of pleasure.

Adora’s back is smooth and milky white, Catra imagines. She can feel the cords of muscle all the way up to and underneath two wide shoulder blades. A shudder rolls underneath her palms as she scratches gentle lines back down to two perfect hips.

On the way back up, Catra begins to notice little differences in the skin. She pays more attention to how her fingers trace Adora’s spine, to where they dip and drag and how her shoulders feel different than her middle back. Little imperfections scattered around the plane of Adora, making her holy and human all at once.

It isn’t until she feels her fingers dip into something distinctly different from the rest of Adora’s back that she gives pause. Her hands still mid-motion, the tip of her ring finger dipping into jaggedly-healed flesh. She knows what it is, remembers the day it happened in vivid, nightmarish detail, but she has to know for herself. So, she splays her whole palm flat and feels them, five deep, parallel lines that run from the middle of Adora shoulder blades to the middle of her back.

Scars.

Hot, stinging tears well up almost immediately and no matter how hard she tries to choke them back, she can’t. They spill over quick as she presses her fingers into the divots, dragging them down the same way she did all those years ago.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, voice wet.

Adora’s stills and she pushes up on her elbows, eyes wide with concern. A look of realization, then understanding passes over her face. “It’s okay. You didn’t mean it.”

An aborted sob falls from Catra’s lips. Wonderful, loving, forgiving Adora. How could she be so beautiful and yet so, so wrong. “But I did. I did back then.”

“You don’t now,” Adora assures, voice as soft as the darkness in the room. “That’s what matters.”

Those words only get Catra so far. It’s hard to know who she was, feel the evidence of it on Adora’s skin. She worries her fingers over the scars, presses them into her memory so she won’t forget what she did.

She has a lot to work through. They both do.

Adora’s hands come up to cradle Catra’s face and she feels herself automatically lean into the touch, chasing the comfort that Adora brings her. “We both made mistakes.”

Maybe they did, but Adora didn’t make the kind of mistakes she did. She didn’t turn her back on her only friend, torture her crew with grueling work hours, berate the only people left in the Horde who genuinely cared about her.

The things she did, she’s not proud of.

“Hey.” A gentle thumb swipes the swell of her cheek, wiping the tears from her face. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Catra says because she does. When Adora touches their foreheads together, Catra feels the entire weight of the world lift off her shoulders. A temporary reprieve of her guilt.

It’s a lot, she suddenly realizes. Being here, being together like this. Bright Moon itself is overwhelming without the crushing anticipation of what’s next, but to be completely at Adora’s mercy right now? There’s too much noise inside of her heart, too much empty adrenaline in her veins. It’s easy to feign apathy when she’s trying to pretend nothing matters. But right now, _everything_ does. It matters so fucking much and it feels like there’s a ticking time bomb inside of her chest. 

“Can we,” She starts, then stops. She almost feels pathetic from the way her own emotions build up inside of her and render her incompetent. The idea of disappointing Adora is enough to grind her into dust, but when Adora looks down at her, eyes so fucking full of love, she knows it’s okay to ask for what she needs. So she steels herself and says, “I’m actually pretty tired?”

It’s more of a question than she means it to be, but Adora seems to put the pieces together.

“Let’s call it a night, yeah?” Adora murmurs, but neither of them moves. They stay like that, tangled and still. The only movement is the way their bodies bow and crest with their breath. This is the closest thing to peace Catra has ever known.

It’s under the comfort of night, the darkness covering them like a safety blanket, where Catra finds the words to ask, “This is going to be hard, isn’t it?”

“What is?” Adora asks, pressing a soft kiss Catra’s hairline.

“Us,” Catra clarifies. “This. Everything. Me being here, in Bright Moon.” _After I tried to burn it to the ground,_ goes unsaid and she hopes Adora can read between the lines.

Adora shifts until, instead of straddling Catra’s hips, she’s pressed against her side with her head resting in the crook of Catra’s neck. She’s back to the same position they started in, cradled in Catra’s arms. One of Catra’s arms comes up to cradle Adora’s neck while the presses into her eyes. The pressure of it alleviates just a little more tension. 

“It might,” She answers after a few moments. “No, it will be.”

A sharp metallic taste fills Catra’s mouth as she bites down on her lower lip.

“I’m –” She tries, but Adora is quick in the way she leans up to steal a kiss. An effective silencer that would probably have been useful in their days as cadets, should Adora ever have thought to use it. It shuts Catra up almost immediately, voice sticking to the back of her throat. 

A gentle hand pulls Catra’a away from her face and to Adora’s lips, where she kisses the tips of her fingers one by one. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t get through it _. Together.”_

Together. Catra likes the sound of that. She rolls the idea around in her mind for a moment, pictures what it might mean. Breakfasts and lunches and dinners together, shared with their friends or taken alone. Sparring in the courtyard for old time’s sake and putting in the blood, sweat, and tears it’s going to take to restore order to Etheria. Climbing to the highest perch in Bright Moon and sitting with Adora under the golden rays of the sunset.

Tracing the invisible scars the war left them with. Rehashing old fights and opening older wounds just to suck the poison out. Panic attacks behind closed doors. Painful tears and vivid memories. Arguing with the best intentions while they’re still learning how to pick up the pieces. Bad days and worse nights.

Catra feels Adora’s breathing even out beside her, gentle puffs of air ghosting across her neck and collar. It feels like the wind

It’s not going to be easy. Not at all. But it’ll be okay.

They’re going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Me, stumbling into the fandom late: hey guys what's up I brought smut
> 
> I'm actually super sorry this chapter doesn't have any smut in it?? At least, not E smut. I had planned for it to be an emotional smut one shot where they get back to Bring Moon and fall into bed together, high on adrenaline just from being alive and they're desperate for each other because _this is real and we're alive_ but then Adora cried and then Catra cried and I was like "yeah no they need to sleep this off" BUT there's going to be a second chapter with E content I pinky promise it. 
> 
> I just love these lesbians so fucking much? My gf talked me into watching it and now we're both headfirst in the fandom so babe if you're reading this no you're not <3
> 
> Anyway now I'm here and I have this fic, plus another monster of a multi-chapter planned and half written so hopefully you'll be seeing more of me and you won't hate me.
> 
> HUGE thank you to [tinyarmedtrex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyarmedtrex) for beta'ing this for me and putting up with me having daily catadora breakdowns in her DMs. Love you.
> 
> Come chat with me on [Tumblr](http://thelazyeye.tumblr.com/) and on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thelazyeye24)! And please, if you’re so inclined, please please please drop a comment and let me know what you thought! I literally live for feedback and validation and I promise the next chapter will come out 10x faster if I know people actually liked this bullshit lmao.


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